Hello all,

Sorry we haven't written for a while, it's been difficult finding decent internet connections. We're in Cambodia now but I'm just going to write up until the end of Lao otherwise this blog will be far too long. So, here goes....

Nick finished typing just before we set off on our tubing trip in Vang Vieng. We'd been quite apprehensive about this as everyone we'd met who was over 25 had hated it!! However, when we reached VangVieng, we teamed up with Meaghan, Adam, Natalie and Craig (friends from the Gibbon Experience) who are all under 25 and had a great time!! Yes, tubing is cheesy; yes there were lots of very drunk idiots (mainly English) and yes, they played techno music at every bar but ... it was brilliant!! We spent the afternoon floating down the river in tubes, stopping at various bars to play on the trapeeze's and zip line's. Then at one of the last bars the lads went on a huge slide which threw them really high in the air (I was far to sensible to try it!). We'd heard stories about people getting seriously injured and even killed "on the tubing" but didn't see or experience any serious injuries. In fact, other than water up my nose, the only injury was Nick bruising his
bum on the water after a bad landing from the slide! If Nick and I had done it alone we wouldn't have had anywhere near as much fun so thanks to the Gibbon guys for making it a great trip!!

That evening the six of us when for dinner and drinks together to round off a great day and say goodbye before heading our separate ways. Shortly after we got "home" it started chucking it down and continued to do so until 3pm the next day. This ruined our plans somewhat and meant that we spent the morning reading in our room and watching Family Guy in one of the local restaurants! (Vang Vieng isn't really a typical Lao town!?) When the rain finally stopped Nick and I went for some short walks around the town and surrounding area and booked our onward trip to Vientiene (Lao's capital city), but the day was basically a bit of a write off.

The next day we were determined to head out to see the caves and blue lagoon we'd been told about. It was possible to hire bikes or a moped but we fancied walking so after breakfast off we went. Fist stop was the Buddha Cave, we had to pay an entrance fee of 10,000kip (just over $1) each then a couple of small boys led us for about 20 minutes into the middle of nowhere where there was a very unimpressive cave with a small Buddha inside that has obviously been placed there for tourists as there were none of the tokens you'd usually see. After that the boys asked for 50,000kip tip (about $4.50 - more than we were paying for our Guest House!!) We wouldn't give them this much but gave them what we thought was a reasonable tip, so they refused to lead us back, luckily it was and easy route so we escaped unharmed!! We couldn't believe that two 7 year olds could be so childish!?!?!

After this we decided not to go to any of the other small caves and to head straight to the main cave and the Blue Lagoon at the end of the trail. The lagoon wasn't particularly blue but it was very refreshing to swim in after the heat of the day and the cave was enormous! Unfortunately our torches weren't powerful enough to go very deep into the cave but we were still impressed with what we saw. After a final dip in the pool we set off back towards Vang Vieng. About halfway back the rain started up again. Proper torrential rain that drenches you in a matter of seconds. Because of the entrance fees to the caves and the tip to the boys tip we were now skint so couldn't pay anyone to take us back but luckily for us a very kind local man gave us a lift to town in the back of his truck for free!

We didn't get much sleep that night with people coming back drunk from tubing but we were still up early the next day for our trip to Vientiene. We had intended to get a bus down but after our rubbish mini bus experience getting to Vang Vieng we decided to kayak instead! We were loaded into a songathew with about 50 other people (well maybe not quite that many but it was very squashed) and driven for about 2 hours down river. We then got into our kayaks and paddled for about an hour and a half going over three lots of rapids on the way! Nick and I managed to capsize on the first two rapids but made it over the third (and supposedly hardest one). We then stopped for a lovely bbq lunch before another half hour kayaking and a two hour mini bus to the city. It was great fun and much more interesting than yet another bus journey. The only bad thing was that I got sunburnt and all the guides were laughing at me for being so white that I turn red!! I can't
believe that I still get sunburnt and called white after 9 months abroad!! We arrived in Vientiene at around 6pm and spent a while looking for a guest house before realising that they're all pretty rough and just checking in to the cheapest!

We spent the next day wandering the streets of Vientiene. For a capital city there isn't really very much to see and it's very quiet. A lot of it was planned by the French so after a quick trip to the Cambodian Embassy to sort out our visas we walked long the Lao version of the Champs Elyses to their (concrete) version of the Arc de Triumph. We then headed out of town to Thatluang Stupa, a huge temple complex which is unfortunately closed on Mondays, so we could only walk around the outside of the buildings. We also spent quite a long time just sitting in the grounds in the shade of a tree talking (it was incredibly hot!) We then walked back into the centre, had lunch, collected our visas, had dinner then jumped on a night bus to Champasak.

This night bus was great. Instead of seats it had bunk beds down either side (it made me think of the night bus in Harry Potter!) The bunks were all the width of two normal seats and sold as doubles which was quite cosy! Luckily Nick and I know each other quite well so that wasn't really a problem but I'm really glad I wasn't travelling alone as I'd have had to share with a total stranger! I actually slept really well on that trip but Nick found it really uncomfy, especially as we were on the top bunk and he was on the aisle side and there was nothing to stop him from falling out!

To get to Champasak we had to change from the night bus to a local bus then get a boat across the river finally arriving at around 8am. We had intended to spend a couple of nights there exploring the town and the countryside and visiting the nearby Wat Phou, the only Khmer temple in Lao. However, after spending some time in the town we realised that there was absolutely nothing to do there except visit the Wat. By the time we realised this we thought that it was too late to cycle there, as we'd planned to do the next morning, so jumped in a tuk-tuk instead. The Wat was interesting but a lot smaller than we expected so we could have cycled there after all. Oh well, we know for next time!!

After another early night and early morning we were on the road again. This time we were travelling by tuk-tuk - boat - bus and another boat to get to Don Khong (4000 Islands) at the border between Lao and Cambodia. This area is described in the guidebooks as the tropical islands of Lao. They are nice but the muddy Mekong can't really compete with a clear blue ocean and mud flats aren't really the same as golden beaches! Anyway, we had a huge, beautiful room in a guesthouse that was all decked out with intricately carved teak furniture and we hired some bicycles to explore the island. The cycle ride took most of the afternoon and was very enjoyable and quite pretty though rediculously hot. That evening we teamed up with some French and Swiss to arrange a deal for our trip to the border the next day, then went for dinner and drinks with our new Swiss friends!

Rather than going direct to the border we had decided to visit two of the other Islands on the way, Don Kon and Don Det. This involved a long boat journey down the Mekong to Don Kon where we visited a waterfall and old train tracks that were built by the French, interesting but not amazing. We then stopped for about 2 hours for lunch! We're not sure why they kept us at the restaurant for so long but suspect that they were waiting for us to buy more drinks (which we didn't). When we finally left we were told that we had 5 minutes to walk across the railway bridge to Don Det and back then we jumped back in the boat to head to the next waterfall, the largest fall in SE Asia by volume. This was really impressive, the amount of water cascading down was amazing and incredibly powerful. Unfortunately, having spent so long at lunch we only had 10 minutes there before we had to head to the border. We were all a bit annoyed about this as we didn't need that long
for lunch but atleast we did see the waterfall!

And so, to the border and our final moments in Lao. We'd already been told that, officially, we did not have to pay any kind of exit tax from Lao, but we'd been warned that the guys on the border will often ask for some dollars for themselves and if you questioned them they'd usually back down. As expected when Nick went to get his exit stamp they asked for $2 but when Nick questioned this the guy just crossed his arms and packed away all of his stamps! Well there's not much we could do was there. We either pay $2 each or we're stuck in Lao at a border check point in the middle of nowhere! So we paid the first corruption tax (as the French dubbed it) of the border crossing.

Well now I've got you all as far as no man's land between Lao and Cambodia it's time for Nick to take over.

Hope you're all well and we'll see you soon.
xxx